No Wonder We Have Food Left 

How Is It?

Question for all of you who live two time zones east of here and more:

How is 2005 so far? Better than 2004?

If not, I might choose to stay when I am. I need a year that's better than the old one. Like desperately need it.


And to all of you:

Have a happy new year!
We still have sushi left over. If you want some, just come by.

Shut Up And Make 'Em Shorter

Are my posts too long?

I am getting traffic from blogexplosion.com recently but either my blog is completely boring or something else keeps YOU from commenting, blogmarking, rating, whatever.

Now I wonder: Are my posts too long?

Because I realize that when you surf upon a blog you don't know there has to be something on the very first page that grabs your interest so you won't just keep on surfing.

Should I shut up? Now?

I am just a girl pining for a little attention from the world out there. So, puh-lease. Gimme some.


Current mood: Feeling neglected. Sniff.
Listening to: Nada. Rien. Nichts. Running out of languages I actually can speak.

New Creativity Plans (That Probably Won't Last Too Long)

Do you remember my weekly freezer column?

Yeah, I didn't think so. As I predicted it was probably the ultimate doomed-to-fail column of all time. I'm still thinking about it every time I open my freezer, so in my heart it's still life.

Whatever.

I got myself a copy of Judith Hermann's 'Sommerhaus, später' yesterday. I had heard about her before. I knew the critics loved her. Both her books are collections of short stories. I'm not such a great short story fan. I like them, some I love, but I prefer a novel to a short story. I just do.
Up to now I have read three of her stories and although they are good I'm just not touched. And I want to be touched. I think the best word describing how I feel about her style is the German word 'spröde'. Here are the three translations my online dictionary suggests:

1) brittle
2) rough
3) demure

Now you go choose the one that fits best describing a style of writing, because I honestly don't know. (And please tell me which one it is, because I want to learn.)

The style is simple and somewhat distant. The stories are about relationships, everyday things. It's not even boring, it's just...

Honestly?

The thought that went through my head while I was reading again and again:
'I could do that.'

I'm not overly convinced of my writing abilities. I did write a couple of short stories and altogether three very bad novels when I was between 15 and 18 or so. I still think that about three or four of my short stories aren't even that bad.
I'm not considering myself a brilliant writer and since I have never had anything published, how could I?

I'm a style-digger. I dig style. I don't care so much about a story when I love the style. You might never hear my complain about a story, but you may hear me complain about style. I can be deeply in awe of writer's and thinking 'I could never have written that.' That gets me.
These stories of Judith Hermann I read so far. Not so much.

So, not to give the impression that I'm just a big complainer and really self-convinced I decided to start a new blog and start writing short stories again. I don't know yet how this blog will look like. I have no plans despite the mere fact that I want to write fiction and put it online.
One minor change (or major maybe) will be that I will write both in German and in English.

These are the plans. I wonder if they are as doomed-to-fail as the Weekly Freezer was. (But maybe the WF is a phoenix. It might rise again from its ashes.)


Current mood: A little bit tense for no special reason.
Listening to: Nothing.

Contacts

...as in no-more-glasses.

We just came back from the optician and we both are wearing contacts at the moment. It was Pi's idea to try contacts and somewhere along the road I decided I wanted to try some, too. I already had contacts for some years until a few years ago when I simply was too lazy to get me new ones, but since I never had problems I thought I could try again.

My problem is that I have to remind myself to wear my glasses which is incredibly stupid because I need them. I only don't realize that I need them because my eyes are so screwed up. Meaning: I have one good eye and one bad eye. I only see in real 3D when I wear glasses but my one good eye is good enough to let me forger to wear my glasses. Which also affects my bad eye in the sense that I just don't use it enough and so it gets worse. Screwed up.

The strange thing is that the optician measured my sight and decided I would only need one contact after all. So, I'm not even wearing contacts, I'm wearing a contact. Add this to the list of 'Why I Am So Strange', right under 'I think food is for playing with' which I will come back to some day.
We have to go back in about one or two hours to see if the lenses we are wearing right now fit. We'll see and I'll get back to you with more 'I'm even more beautiful now'-news really soon.

Current mood: Hey, things are clear. I'm actually seeing 3D. There IS a third dimension. (I wish I was kidding.
Listening to: Nothing. (And Pi knocking on the living room wall, indicating that I should come there, too.)

New Friends, Old Fiends

The title is somewhat an exaggeration. Not the fiends part, the friends part.
However, I'm referring to our neighbours.

We live in a house with eight apartments, two on each floor. (We're on second floor (German p.o.v.) or respectively third floor (American p.o.v.), if you want to know.)
The apartments on ground/first floor are really one apartment because they tore the wall between the apartments down and made it a really huge one (if what we think is right it must have approximately 160 square meters). It has been empty for about one year now and finally people are moving in.

We already call them our new friends because they seem to be exactly what we need in this house which brings me right to fiends part of the title.

We hate our neighbours who live one floor down. They are definitely neighbours from hell in a lot of ways.
We met them for the first time when they knocked on our door to tell us that we must not shower after 10 p.m. Yay! What a way to greet your new neighbours. Did I mention that that was about two weeks after we moved in? Yeah.
They also complained about us hanging our bedsheets out to get some air. Then they told us that we MUST NOT play piano at any time of the day or at least play it quietly. It's a piano, guys. You can't just turn it down.
Apart from that it obviously wasn't enough to just complain about that. They had to get out on the balcony first and hammer against our window with some broomstick. Nice.
The guy also shouted at a kid in the neighbours garden because they accidentally kicked their football over the fence and it landed in our garden.
Oh, I almost forgot that they complained again this summer because I watered my plants too quickly and so a teeny-weeny bit of water leaked on their balcony.

I want to point out that we are really nice people. We do play the piano and I do take showers after 10 p.m. occasionally but that are things you have to deal with when you live together with other people.

So we declared these people our personal enemies and I even stopped greeting them when we meet.

So, the really good thing about the new neighbours is that apparently they have at least one child. And they have access to the garden. So there's bound to be some kid noise in this house really soon which I can totally deal with, but I'm not so sure our personal enemies can. And the father doesn't look like he would be intimidated by them at all, which is just so cool I can't find the right words for it.

I also saw a dog today in the garden but I'm afraid it's not their dog. I so hope it is. For one thing because I love dogs so much I can gain happiness from the thought that there is one in this house. The other thing is that I'm pretty sure our enemy neighbours won't like a dog in the house. Yeah, I think you got it. Everything that's bad for our enemy neighbours is perfect for me. I'm so happy. (I still don't think the dog belongs to our new neighbours, since I'm convinced that our landlady wouldn't allow dogs. On the other hand it took them so long to get the apartment rented she might have a agreed to some compromises.)

Well, we'll see how our new neighbours are and if they are as much a pain in the ass of our enemy neighbours as we hope they are. I keep my fingers crossed.


Apart from that it's still snowing. Amazingly I might add. The weather forecast said snow would turn into rain during the day but it's already after 3 p.m. and it hasn't happened yet. I went out for some shopping and it snowed the whole time. I took my camera to take some pictures but the batteries ran out after two pictures. Meh.

Now I'm off to the couch. I will stuff myself with junkfood and watch TV. Happy me.

Current mood: Relaxed and happy (for very different reasons).
Listening to: Slipped Away by Avril Lavigne.

Keeping Promises

So, I really, really wanted to run today. Even the weather forecast promised me some kind of warm weather (warm for this season). I still can't bring myself to run when it's too cold. I know that it's supposed to be even better, but I'm not ready for that yet.

Now, how can I run when the world outside looks like this???


Street & Snow

Note: The picture was taken like 10 minutes ago. It's not so dark out there, the sky is just completely grey and obviously the camera can't really handle the greyness. It's also, just fyi, taken from our kitchen window.

Current mood: Overly happy. (Not because of the not-running but because of the snow. SNOW!)
Listening to: Nothing.

Can't Hardly Wait

Of course I couldn't wait to show you our great Christmas gift. So here it is.
This isn't a fantastic picture but it's as good as I could do at the moment.

They fit perfectly with our bright yellow painted wall and by the way that's my guitar in the corner.


The pictures

Christmas Memories

Here's my brief account of my Christmas days. I won't go into much detail here since it's already late and I know myself to know that once I go a little bit into detail I'm already so deep in that it will definitely take me a really long time to finish this post.


Friday

As you might or might not know we celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th. As a kid that meant waiting until the evening before you could open your presents, but just so you know, that really isn't as bad as it sounds. Also, I like the atmosphere when it's already dark and you feel this tension all day long. And, as should be obvious, I'm used to it, so it seems natural to me that you open your Christmas presents in the evening.
Anyway, as I already wrote in my last post (if I'm not completely wrong) my parents asked us to come over and celebrate at their place and though we considered it we chose not to and be just the two of us for that evening.
You already heard about my Christmas dinner plans as well, only there was a little bit of a change. I didn't make dessert. We were so full when we had finished the main course that I didn't want to go into cooking stress again. I'm planning to make it for tomorrow though since a friend of Pi is coming for dinner, so I can finally tell you how it tastes. Just a short comment about the dinner though. The salad with the 'peppered honey-apples' was delicious. Great. I realize I am somewhat of a enthusiastic 'eater'. I just love to cook and eat, just because I always want to try out new things and really enjoy new tastes and recipes. My mother doesn't get me at all with this. Anyway.
So we enjoyed our dinner and then went to opening presents. Pi was allowed to open two of his before, since I got him (or us for that matter) a 'Dekanter' and two enormous red-wine goblets and we needed those for our dinner.
Apart from that I got him a book ('The Wall' by Marlen Haushofer, which is absolutely amazing and you should get it now) and a CD ('Hang on Little Tomato' by Pink Martini). I had some problems finding good presents this year since I missed going to Cologne to get them and the shops here just aren't that great.
I got only one present, but that was totally cool, since I finally got an MP3-player which I can take with me when I'm going for a run VERY SOON. (That's more a promise to myself than anything else.)
We then went into couch-TV-mode and watched 'Scrooged' (which I have seen for the very first time and I loved it if only for Bill Murray who I always love) and 'Unforgettable' and then we were off to bed.


Saturday

Saturday I spent the whole morning and early afternoon finishing my aunt's present. I made her a cookbook with copies from my cooking magazines and some handwritten recipes in between (mostly because I made too little copies to fill the book). It didn't turn out as great as I had planned but I was satiesfied with the result. Just when I had finished giftwrapping it my parents came by to pick us up.
I won't write much about our evening at my grandparents. Nothing extraordinary happened there. The food was great as always, we drank a lot and had even more fun. We also got our presents. The coolest was one from my parents. It's a set of four pictures and I was told that they are screen printings. On each picture is a musician, together they are a jazz band. As I always feel it's not much use to spend too much words to describe pictures (and music) I will make a picture really soon and post it here. We finally managed to hang the pictures on our living room wall today, so I can tell they look really cool. You'll see.


Sunday

Not much happened on Sunday. Pi and I took a really long walk after all the celebrating. We really felt we needed some fresh air. On our way back we got batteries for my MP3-player and I tried it out when we got home. It's really great and I can't wait to have an opportunity to use which makes sense. (Note: Sitting on the couch and listening to your MP3-Player DOES NOT make sense.)


Then the holidays were over.

I will write more if I find the time and I also might include some childhood Christmas memories that might be even more interesting than recalling this year's Christmas.

Sad note: We didn't have a tree. Sniff.


Current mood: Nothing special. Happy so far.
Listening to: Something by Pink Martini. I could find out the name of the track but I won't.

Christmas Preparations

So, merry christmas everyone.

I suppose that part of you won't get their presents until tomorrow, but we do celebrate christmas tonight, so I'm all excited and knee-deep in preparations. It's only going to be Pi and I tonight. My parents asked us if we would like to come over and celebrate with them, but we decided not to. It wasn't so much a decision against my parents but more because we wanted to have a cozy christmas with just us two.
We're having dinner at my grandparents tomorrow evening anyway, so we'll see them then. We'll also see my aunt Judith, although Claudia (her girlfriend) is not coming. Meh. I'd have loved to see her. But that's all tomorrow.

About today:

We're going to have a four course dinner that I put together from my favorite cooking magazine. The courses are:

1. Gorgonzola-Creamcheese-Cream with Sweet Pepper Salad (yeah, I know how it sounds, I'm doing my best to translate that here)

Gorgonzola-Creamcheese-Cream with Sweet Pepper Salad

2. Wintersalad with Peppered Honey-Apples

Wintersalad with Peppered Honey-Apples

3. Roasted Duck with Chestnuts, Cranberries and Grapes (and Croquettes)
(I don't have a picture for that because we couldn't find a recipe to match exactly what we wanted, so we made up our own thing from different recipes)

4. Gingerbread-Panna-cotta with Stewed Oranges

Gingerbread-Panna-cotta with Stewed Oranges

Are you hungry now? I hope so.

This morning my last presents arrived. I ordered something from amazon.de in the evening of the 22nd, so I was afraid that it wouldn't get here on time, but everything is here now.
I also treated myself with the DVD of 'The Muppets Christmas Carol' that I will force Pi to watch with me. Again. And I found all our three christmas CDs, so nothing can destroy my spirit now.
I still have to giftwrap everything and stuff, but even now a kind of relaxed mood has kicked in. I guess it's coming with the certainty that I've got all my presents.

Apart from that I started playing The Sims 2 again, and I built the last four contestants from the Apprentice as well as Donald Trump and his Melania (they live in a different house though). Up to now Donald and Melania are already married, Donald is pursuing a career in politics and Melania in sports.
At the Trumpee's home, Kevin is married to Kasimir and Sandy is deeply in love with Babsi. I also managed to hook Kelly up to Jen, so if those two get married I won't get another Sim to control. I will report if something important happens there.

So, since I don't think I will get to post again today I wish all my blogreaders and their family and friends a very merry christmas! Enjoy it! And count yourself lucky if you get a white christmas. It's something I've been waiting for since approximately 1980.

Current mood: Finally the christmas spirit got me. I caught myself singing tidbits of the Muppet Christmas Carol songs on my way to the grocery store.
Listening to: The End Of A Love Affair by Stina Nordenstam (But I will play some christmas tunes VERY soon)

Radio Epiphany

If I have to listen to 'Last Christmas' one more time then...
I don't know...
Something really bad will happen.

Please stop it!

Note To Caitlin

If you get a chance to read this. If not, doesn't matter that much anyway.

I will try to make a copy of 'High July' tomorrow. I also made a compilation of all the supposedly rare Katell Keineg stuff I have hoping there's something new for you in it. It's not so rare as in 'only-I-have-it'-rare, but more in a 'I-managed-to-get-that-single-from-Ebay'-rare.
You'll see.

So, hopefully I can send the CDs on Monday which will be soon enough for you to get them in Mainz. If the postal service doesn't fuck up, that is.

Long Time No See

So, I finally have the time to post for my blog and I don't. Figures.
It's late in the evening and I'm tired and ready to go to bed, so this post is mainly for letting whoever reads this blog know that I have NOT abandoned this blog. I'm still here. This blog is still maintained and taken good care of.

By the way I've proven myself to be a quite good housewife during the week that I was at home and Pi had his English course in Cologne and some other appointments in the evening. I even tried several new dishes from my cooking magazine.
Today it was toast with sauerkraut, apple and cheese. Very tasty, no meat but (I suppose) not really fat free.

I also didn't watch as much TV as I thought I would which was partly because the last days turned out to be really sunny and our living room faces south and we only have white linen curtains that look really nice but are no good in keeping out the sunshine when you want to watch TV during the day.
I also continued to play Spellforce, but again not as much as I thought I would.

I'm so proud I didn't fall into lazy mood right away. In fact I think I was pretty active. Not overly active, but still.

Tomorrow we are going to go to Bonn to meet possible future tenants for Pi's apartment. If we're lucky we will find someone who actually bothers to PAY THE RENT. Yeah. People can be really annoying. Don't ask me about it. I finally managed to hate a person with all my heart's passion before I met them (that is, I will tomorrow and I have to really pull myself together then).

So, I promise to write more soon. I had so many things I wanted to say during this week, but right now I really can't think of anything.

Current mood: Really content. And tired.
Listening to: Nothing.

TV epiphany

I am watching a retro show on a music channel featuring various video clips of the year 1994 and I just wanted to say that I'm honestly happy that the nineties are over.
Gee, did I really think those songs were cool?
And GEE, who came up with that ridiculous idea that East 17 was a sexy boygroup?
Because they're not.

Gross.

Darmstadt, City of Dreams

I'm not even totally kidding. I had no expectations of Darmstadt at all, for me it was just a name of a city south of Cologne and I was surprised how beautiful and interesting it was, or at least those parts of Darmstadt that Anke and Berndt showed us. I'm still amazed.

Anyway, it is early in the morning and I don't have to go to work. For three weeks. Yay! Pi has another English course in Cologne, so I have all the mornings alone this week. I originally wanted to go back to bed once he'd left but somehow I ended up at my computer and now I'm posting those wonderful pictures of Darmstadt that we (mostly I) took. We had my parent's camera with us so we could take 129 pictures. Mine only saves up to 40 pictures or so.

So, before I have to decide what I'm gonna do to seize the morning or if I'm going back to bed where I can read and then fall back asleep, here are the first Darmstadt impressions:


Hundertwasser



Street in Darmstadt



Anke, Berndt and Jamie

Coming up next: Our new Murphy experience, people who own stuff, things you should not tell your girlfriend and more...

Current mood: Still exhausted. I was so tired yesterday I fell asleep watching 'The Score' and it was before 11 pm.
Listening to: Nothing yet.

On Our Way

I'm leaving the office in about 20 minutes and we're going to Darmstadt. This is like the furthest I've been away in the last four years or so. Pity me, please. (Only that it's completely my fault, since my priorities are 'Stuff First, Voyages Second'.)

So no time for a long post and no promise for another one until Sunday evening at the earliest. And I guess I'm too tired then.

We're taking our camera (or more my parent's camera) so there might be pictures here next week and you all get to see impressions of the world's most amazing town. Not. Excited anyway. Especially since I get to take an ICE to get there. Yay! Fast train, gooooooo!

Current mood: Excited.
Listening to: Streets Have No Name by (or sung by, since it's a U2 cover) Vanessa Carlton.

Mixed Confessions

Movies and TV shows I haven't seen (and don't intent to do so)

Schindler's List
I haven't seen Schindler's List. I know it's supposed to be a great movie and is listed in every '100-Top-Movies-Of-All-Time'-Lists I have read so far, but I haven't seen it.
The really strange thing is that I don't even think I want to see it. I have not the slightest interest in seeing it. And I honestly have no idea where that strange non-interest in that particular movie comes from.
I even think that I would like that movie. I suppose it's a great movie. I bet it would make me cry. Yet, if it would be on television tonight I would most likely watch something else.

Indiana Jones movies
I have seen zero Indy movies. None. Not one. Zero. Somehow they always slipped by my TV schedule and before I realized there were Indiana Joney movies they all disappeared to cable TV and until May I was the last person in this country without cable or satellite. Yeah, I was a caveman.
I fear I'm too old now to start watching Indiana Jones movies. I get the feeling that they are the kind of movies you watch for the first time when you're about ten and then they somehow manage to become a part of your childhood nostalgia, which is the perfect excuse for watching a movie over and over again. Too late for me though.

Blade Runner
I don't even know what that movie is about. Maybe this is part of the reason why I don't know why I should watch it. How could I want to see a movie when I have no clue what it is about. This is what I know about Blade Runner:
1) Science Fiction movie
2) Harrison Ford
And since neither one of those things is my ultimate turn-on I haven't gotten around to watching Blade Runner yet.
Wanna know a sick thing? We have that movie on DVD. At home. And I still haven't seen it.

MacGyver
What???
I don't know what's worse... the fact that I haven't seen a single episode of MacGyver or the fact that I still think I should have watched it just so I knew what it is like and wouldn't feel so dumb whenever someone mentions MacGyver. Just as I'm writing I search the internet and have now, at the age of 24, officially seen how MacGyver looked like for the first time. I'm so far behind.
It's that guy that can build a power plant with just a wire, an old shoe and some moldy cheese sandwich, isn't he?

Any Start Trek series /movie besides TNG
This is mostly because somewhen in the early nineties all Star Trek series and movies were broadcasted by SAT1, another station that I couldn't receive. So, I have no Star Trek knowledge that extends the basic TNG knowledge. I have seen the very first episode of Star Trek: TNG though. You know the one with the giant jellyfish that somehow were turned into cities and then the crew rescued the jellyfish and in the end two jellyfish-turtledoves flew into space, tentacle in tentacle and if I'm not completely mistaken, they waved goodbye to the crew with another tentacle. Yeah. I was only a teenager and willing to absorb and believe everything on TV but even I realized that this was crap.



TV shows I would absolutely buy if they came out on DVD

Note to readers: I know. Don't ask.

Rags to Riches
I would like to believe that this one goes without saying. I'm afraid it doesn't. I was eight.

Earth 2
Should go without saying. Really. Loved that show. Only I hated Uly from episode one. Bad spoiled kid. Poor True.

Maybes...
Blossom
Yeah, tragically enough. I would consider buying Blossom season sets on DVD. I still love the opening credits.

To be continued.


Current mood: Mixed in the sense that I don't feel really happy and I don't feel really bad.
Listening to: Worn Me Down by Rachael Yamagata.

I am WHAT?

This is a close apporiximation of the conversation Andreas and I had yesterday about the work situation around Karneval next year.

Me: So, where's the logic here? We have the day off on Monday and they're serving lunch and on Thursday we don't have a day off and they don't serve lunch? They could just say 'You're not allowed to come on Thursday. Stay home. There's nothing here to see.'

Andreas: I'm planning to take that day off anyway, so.

Me: Yeah, but the good thing is, they can't force you to take the day off. So you could just come and have the whole building for yourself and do whatever you want.

Andreas: Yeah, but the thing is that that's the day of the parade in Mönchengladbach, so all the streets are blocked. So there are no busses going home and my parents can't pick me up from the station either.

Me: Yeah, only that...

Andreas: ...what?

Me: That's in February. You don't live with your parents in February anymore. You're moving out. You can walk to your apartment from the station then.

Andreas: I knew there was something.

---

Yeah, get used to the thought that you're MOVING OUT! In three weeks. And that from a guy that talks about moving out for more than a year now. It's finally happening.

And, yes, that was a real tenancy agreement that you signed.

How to Make Me Avoid a Movie

This is just another thing where I can display very strange behaviour. It's one thing that I hardly ever go to the movies because there's hardly ever any movie playing that I'm not willing to wait to see until it's out on DVD and I can get it and watch it on my couch at home. But apart from that there's one way to completely piss me off a movie that does always, always work.

Keep telling me how great it is. Just keep telling me that I must go see this movie, because it's so fucking incredibly great.

(That goes for people I know personally and all kinds of magazines, TV shows and so on.)

And you know what? If you do that, you hereby reduce the chances that I will really go see that movie (and my interest in that particular movie) to a minimum.

It helps if the movie you are constantly advising me to go see is French. That's just the cherry on the cake in the quest of making me not want to see any movie.
I'm not a cinema-racist, I even like French movies, I watch French movies, I have French movies. A lot of them. Before I turned 18 I must have seen about 10 Truffaut movies, at least 2 Rohmer movies and several other French movies and liked them.
But thing is that nearly every movie I avoided because everyone kept telling me it was so great I had to see it was French. Or Italian. They make nice movies, yes. I loved 'Jules & Jim' and I always cry during the whole last 15 minutes of 'Cinema Paradiso', but all in all, neither the French nor the Italians make better movies than the rest of the world.

So, this is why haven't seen '8 Femmes' up to now, because everybody including my father who NEVER goes to the cinema kept telling me how great a movie it was and that I absolutely must see it. They were practically attempting to drag me into a cinema and chain me to a seat.
This is also part of the reason why I had no interest whatsoever in going to see 'Good-Bye Lenin' when it was playing in the cinemas. Because it was so high-praised and every damn magazine told me I had to see it. Well, I saw it (only a lot later and and on VCD). That movie, honestly, was melancholic and triste right on its way to plain boring. What was that fuzz about? Who told me that movie was a comedy? Because I didn't laugh. Not once. I didn't even smirk.
I'm not saying that it was a completely bad movie, it just wasn't what everyone promised me it would be.
And 'Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain'? Nice movie. Very artsy. Lot of nice ideas. Really sweet adorable actress, whose haircut looks so nice on her that you run the risk of having your hair cut like this. Yeah. NOT the greatest movie in the world.

If you have a movie that you saw and loved and you think that I would like it as well, go ahead and say so. Tell me what it is about and why you liked it so much (without telling me spoilers... give me spoilers, you're dead!) and I might even consider seeing it. I need and read reviews. I'm not deaf to recommendations.
Just don't tell me what I have to do! Don't act like this is the only movie worth seeing in the whole wide world! Don't give me the feeling that not being that interested in this particular movie and therefore deciding not to see it makes me an incredibly dumb, ignorant and foolish person! Let me make my decisions. Because I'm old enough already. And I have seen movies. French ones, too.

So, if there's a movie playing that you have seen and that left you speechless, tell me about. But be careful how you tell me. Because if I get the feeling that not taking the advice and not going to see it is close to being considered as a capital crime...?

Yeah.
I won't go.

Dude, Where Are Your Things?

Are we the only people in this world who own things? It's like every time I am at somebody's place for the first time I get the feeling that we must be very strange people because we actually have things at home. Like books. Or CDs. Or, you know, movies on video or DVD. A lot of them. And other people apparently don't.

Take books for example. We have three IKEA Billy bookcases sized 60x202 cm, two sized 80x202 cm and one sized 60x106 cm stacked with books. And I don't even talk about the books that Pi has stored in various boxes in his room or the ones that both of us still have in other people's basements somewhere. And I'm buying new ones all the time.
I take the risk of seeming overly self-convinced and close to arrogant to add that we have books in three languages, four if you count the one Dutch book I ordered while I was high on hubris (I must have been high on something, because there's no way I'm gonna finish this book EVER), five if you count the three or so comic books in Finnish I got from ebay and eight if you count the Japanese and Norwegian language course I bought and the Spanish beginner's short stories I bought because I thought that Spanish was so like French that I would be able to read them. Yeah. Did I tell you about the Dutch book? Right. See, when I say that languages are my hobby? I mean it.
Bottom line is: we own books. A lot of them. And we're book lovers, so they are well treated and look great in their IKEA home.

So, where are the books at other people's places? Do they hide them? I just realized that other people might go to the library and get their books from there, a thing that I haven't done in years. One reason is that I like to get amazon packages. Another reason is that most of the books I want to have are too new to get at the library and since I want them in English if possible, the chances for me to get them are not that good. So, the library sounds like a good idea in theory but doesn't work for me at all. And that from a girl that once declared the local library her second home. I even got to advise other people on what to read because I was there every damn day. I was like part of the staff for at least one summer. But I guess those were the times before amazon and the joys of online shopping and before my aversion against reading books originally written in English in German. (I don't, just for the record, read books by German authors in the English translation. I'm not that crazy.)

Okay, but even if they go to the library, they should have some books, shouldn't they? And by some I mean a number of books great enough to fill at least one bookcase. Is that too hard? Because that's approximately the amount of books I owned when I was 14.

I'm not saying that I think those people are stupid and don't read, I'm just curious. Where are their books?

And don't make me start about CDs. I admit that both Pi and I are music geeks and have an inordinant number of CDs. I haven't counted mine lately, but I think I must own about 400 CDs and I'm very proud to say that only a real small number of those are burnt CDs. Pi says he owns about 1000 CDs and that's likely to be possible since his collection needs about twice the space for storing, so that number sounds accurate. I can't talk for Pi here, but with few exceptions I can honestly assure you that I have listened to each CD I own. I can't afford to buy CDs and not listen to them at the moment anyway.

Yes, I am a whole album girl. If I hear a song I really like, I need the whole album. I have a well developed distaste for singles. I don't get them. What are they for, why should I spend money on them? I hope I'm not pissing somebody off when I say that in my opinion singles are for teenagers (who don't know better) and losers (who will never know better).
Experience showed me that on any given album the song that was taken from the album as a single (and therefor most likely the one that made me buy that album) is one of my least favorites in the end. There are exceptions, but few. That's one reason why I want to get the whole thing. Another reason why in spite of all our money problems I still can't help buying CDs every now and then is I just like owning it (like, you know, I like owning books). The booklet, the CD, the whole package. I want it.

Other people obviously don't. It's not as bad as with books, but on the other hand, I consider music and the blessings of a good CD collection even more valuable to my inner peace than literature.

Maybe my priorities are screwed up. Here I am, bitching about the fact that I haven't had a decent vacation (like in going away) in nearly five years and at the same time I consider about ten different things I could order on amazon right now (such as Spellforce Add-On: Breath of Winter and Shadow of the Phoenix, Sex and the City Season 6, Petra Haden's (and Bill Frisell's) new CD, Winnie-the-Pooh in Latin, several books on linguistics,...)

I guess my main problem is that I like to own things. Not in that sick sense that I want to just have randomly chosen items, but that I like to get something I'm interested in and keep it. I'm not a renting person. I don't like to rent. I loved the library when I was younger, but not so much now, I've never been a member of any video rental shop. I want to watch a movie any time I want. I don't want to feel hurried to watch a movie just because if I don't tonight I will have to pay more tomorrow. I like the books I read standing in my bookcase as my trophies of accomplished literature efforts.

I'm not oversensitive with my stuff. My CDs tend to fly around outside their cases, I don't mind friends and relatives borrowing anything even for a long time and as long as they don't break anything I don't really care how they treat my things. It's just books and discs. But I like them to be mine.

Basically, Pi and I are media guys. Our whole apartment is filled with media. I also have about 15 or more computer games and we have a medium sized collection of boardgames. Sometimes it seems to me that we are interested in way too many things already. I can't keep up with what I want to read, watch, listen to at all. It's the crux of being interested in many things that the average 24-hour day is too short for all the things you would like to do. It's even frustrating at times, like 'What? It's 2 am already? But I wanted to at least finish this level... and then I wanted to read some more in my book! And see the latest episode of Joan of Arcadia!'

And this is why I can't understand how people get along without the number of books, CDs, movies and stuff that I would consider average. I love to come to a place the first time and browse the bookshelves and CD-racks, look for the DVDs and maybe even borrow the one or other because I want to read or see that, too. That hardly ever happens. It's always other people borrowing things from us.

Yeah, because we are stupid enough to keep buying stuff.

Current mood: Getting headaches. Maybe that's my punishment for being so self-absorbed and arrogant.
Listening to: Nothing.

Ready to Go!

I'm at work but ready to leave. Got here a little bit late today, since Pi has a three-day English course in Cologne this week and we took the train together. Anyway, I didn't get much done today, but made some efforts in maintaining social contacts here. Meaning: I met Kerstin at the coffee bar and she asked how my exams went and we talked a little. Later I went up to the floor she works and we talked some more about my exams and how we both think that Fachinformatiker (what I do) are in no way less trained than MaTAs (what she did), only they are, but that's not a result of the traning itself, but the way the training is organized in this very company. Nobody pays any attention to us, while all the MaTAs get everything to prepare them for their job. Do I sound bitter? Yeah, well, I am. That's the bitterness that I grew during the last 2 1/2 years and I don't plan to let it go.
She also told me I should go talk to a project manager I worked for for some time and see if she can help me get a job here for at least some time. So I went up the floor where she works, but it seemed that she was busy so I left without being noticed. I plan to go back up there, both to see Kerstin and the maybe-helpful-project-manager, this week.

Not much more happening here and I'm not very motivated right now. Pi has his English course three days this week and then another one the whole next week, which is kind of nice, because I have the week off next week, so I have a lot of me-time. I realize that it sounds a little bit cruel to be happy to be alone when you chose to live with someone. It's not like that! Definitely not! It's just that back when I was 16 and older I was so independent and I used to do everything alone. There was a time when I went to the movies at least once a week, most of the times alone. Back then I always imagined myself living alone in my twenties and it turned out really different, so it's like with that week off and the mornings and early afternoons all to myself I get a little bit of pure me-time and I can do all the stupid things I want to do without anybody judging me for it. It's just a week anyway.

I still owe you my story about my personal Murphy's Law experience. That will come soon. Anyway, the morning of my exams my mother told me she thinks about paying for a little vacation for Pi and me. She was thinking about something like the Canaries, but I told her that I'm not the beach-relax-type. If I would choose where to go for the first vacation I have had in years it would be some interesting city. The three top choices right now are: Lissabon, Barcelona and Helsinki (don't ask, I have my reasons for every one). I'm not really interested in Italy (I've been there twice and I don't feel the urgent need to go there very soon again), I have been in Paris and London, so I'd like to see something new.
Hey, Reykjavik would be cool (no pun intended).

Current mood: I'm gone here soon. And the prospect of three weeks off very soon makes me incredibly happy.
Listening to: Afterglow by Vanessa Carlton (I'm getting a little bit obssessive, don't you think?)

Quick Post

Here's something I wrote yesterday but the internet connection was a mess and so I wasn't able to post it.

It's really late, but I'm going to at least write a short post about what happened today.
As I said we went to Cologne where we first spent some time at a bookstore. I have to get a new book for next weekend. I can't possibly make a 2-and-more hour train ride without anything to read besides the good but difficult Vanity Fair. I'm thinking 'Our Lady of the Forest' might be next, but I'm not sure yet.
Then we walked all the way to the little boardgame-shop near Barbarossaplatz, which really wasn't so far away, only it was really cold. Strange weather here again, it's incredibly misty all the time and it makes the world seem a little strange and unreal. I was marvelling over the strange dark blue sky early in the evening. We spent a lot of time there pondering over which game we would purchase if any. After quite some time just hanging around, picking games and looking at them, sometimes opening the boxes to look inside we finally decided to let the people there help us. We watched a guy from the shop explaining a game to another guy from the shop. Obviously they have this 'system' where they explain games to each other, in case a customer wants to know something about it. If I ever go to university again and it will be in Cologne and I need some extra money, I would love to have a job there. Definitely. The game itself sounded very cool, still a bit weird. Short summary: You have to at first place as many of your people in Pompeji as you can and once the volcano erupts you have to get them out as soon as possible. It's definitely on our wish list now.
So I had this guy explain 'Jambo' to me and also asked to hear short ratings of other games I've been wanting to buy, but we finally decided on Jambo, which is a nice light two-player-game. We played it already and although it has a lot of luck it seems to have enough strategy as well to be fun and not stupid.
After that we walked to a small mexican fast-food place and had burrito wraps. Mine was something with chicken and a supposedly creole sauce. I can't really tell if it was creole because I never actually had something with creole in it, but it was tasty and I won't complain.

We then took the train back home where I had my father get us from the station and take us to their place. Pi and I had decided that we wouldn't go to Jörg's birthday, but would come by my parents for an hour or so and have the evening just for us. I would have loved to go to that party later, but definitely not today. I am so stressed out at the moment that I can't think of something better than just a weekend with no social obligations. I plan to call Jörg (if I can find out his number) and tell him we're sorry and maybe make some plans for some other time.
Anyway, it was nice that we went to my parents for the late afternoon. Later my grandparents came and then Renilda, Vera and Herlinde arrived. We had some early dinner and talked and basically had a nice time. I told my grandmother there was a tv-documentary on December 24th about Christmas in a special region in Lithuania (Memelland) which is where she comes from and I think she was really happy that I told her. Also I promised Renilda to make a list of books I would recommend. She has this monthly book-club meeting with a few other women where they talk about a book they have read and she thinks I might have some recommendations for her, so one of the next times she can suggest a book. I definitely recommend The Time-Traveler's Wife, but I don't know what else I could recommend. Not because I don't know some books I think are amazing, but because I think my taste of books is kind of strange. There's 'Set This House In Order' which I think is great, but the multiple personality thing and the really weird setting isn't everybody's thing I guess. I also think that 'Life of Pi' was great, but that also has a really strange story, so I'm not sure if that's a good recommendation for a women's book-club. I will browse my bookshelves some more and make a list.
(By the way: Jamie, they already read 'The Lovely Bones', so I can't recommend that.)
At 7:30 pm we had my mother drive us to the supermarket. We got something to eat for tomorrow and then headed home. I was so tired by then I thought I was going to fall asleep immediately, though of course I didn't.Here's a short summary of the few things we did then:Cleaned the apartment a little and put the groceries where they belong.Played our first game of Jambo and liked it. Pi won, as usual, but it was really close.Watched a little bit of TV and now Pi is still in the living room and I am writing.That's it.

I want to run tomorrow and I would like to do it when it's not dark, so we can actually run in some forest which according to the map is really close and might provide good running possibilities. I hope I (or we) can bring myself to it.

Current mood: Tired and exhausted but still happy since I didn't waste my day today. I alwas get a good feeling when I can look back on a day and actually say that I did something.
Listening to: She Floats by Vanessa Carlton (which has a really strange instrumental/choir part and I'm not sure yet what to make of it)

Going to Cologne

We're going to Cologne in twenty minutes. This is not particularly a great event since I go to Cologne every workday, but still. We're going shoppin' and I'm with my man. Now that's something.
We thought about going to Wuppertal, but it's more expensive and we don't really know our way around in Wuppertal, so I suggested going there when I'm on vacation. As far as I remember Wuppertal is a beautiful interesting town and I would like to not feel any time pressure when I'm there.
The strange thing is that Wuppertal is only 20 minutes away by train and we never go there, although it's worth it. It's like when I lived in Bonn and I lived about 15 minutes away (by foot)from the museums and I never went there, except when there were museum visits scheduled for one of my art history classes and that one time when my parents and my aunt and uncle came to visit me and we went to the 'Haus der Geschichte' (house of history). It was really really interesting and yet I could never get myself to visit any of the museums just by myself. I think the closer you live to something, the more you promise yourself to go there and the less the chance to ever do it.

By the way, we're going to Darmstadt next weekend to see Anke and her boyfriend. I first was a little bit grumpy when Pi told me he got the tickets because right now I need weekends with no plans more than anything, but then I remembered that my vacation starts on December 13th, so I really don't care about a weekend full of plans now, because I have full three weeks with no plans after that. I'm looking forward to it now.

Okay, we have to leave now. We are invited for two birthdays tonight and I would rather stay at home after all. Don't know that we are going to do. I kind of promised my Dad we would at least show up today be it just for an hour in the late afternoon. I'm hoping to see Judith then, but I don't know if she's coming and when, so I might not see her there after all.
That other birthday party I told you about I would love to go to, but not today. Please. I don't know if we're going although I think we should and it might be a lot of fun. We'll see.

Current mood: Happy, but not too happy to have to go out in the cold and misty. Yeah, misty.
Listening to: San Francisco by Vanessa Carlton (Again. I told you, I really like that song.)

News From the Freezer / Night Blackout

Our poor freezer got defrosted again. I haven't had the chance to look inside it yet, but I certainly have to think of something that includes chicken for dinner.

I woke up this night and checked the alarm clock. Strangely enough, because I usually don't check my alarm clock when I wake up during the night. I don't want to see that I have only 30 minutes before the alarm goes off. I like to go back to sleep in ignorance. But this night I actually did check the time and noticed that we obviously had no electricity. Pi woke up as well and I told him that we were without that great invention called electricity. So we got up and looked out the kitchen window only to realize that this was pretty pointless. There were no lights on anywhere, but it was 3 am, so I guess that was just normal. Also, the streetlamps didn't work, but I can't even tell whether this is normal or not. I know there are streets where streetlamps are turned off during the night, because there's not much traffic there. I've never paid attention to whether this is the case with our street. Very strange and also a little bit frightening were the sirens I heard. I couldn't make out whether they were police or ambulance sirens or some car alarm or whatever. Together with the blackout it seemed really strange and unreal.
Then I tried to turn on the lights in the stairway of our house and that didn't work, so at least I know that we were not the only ones with no electricity. I don't know what happened. The next time I checked, my alarm clock was on again, so somewhen between 3 am and 6 am the blackout was over. Luckily Pi has radio alarm clock that works with batteries, so I was able to set the alarm on his clock and get up this morning. It was kind of strange though. You don't realize how dependent you are on electricity and how much you take it for granted until there's a blackout. No lights, no alarm clocks, no TV, no computer, no fridge, no stove. That's almost scary.

So, our freezer most likely got defrosted this night, although it was really not necessary.

Still, I wonder why I woke up this very night and looked at my clock. These are two things I hardly ever do and why should I? This night it was really helpful, cause if I hadn't waken up, I would have overslept today and would be angry at the world for having to stay at work even longer (and on a Friday!).

Current mood: Happy! I will go home in about one hour and then I don't have to go back here for two days.
Listening to: San Francisco by Vanessa Carlton (I still don't know what to think of her. Part of me thinks she's a quite talented, yet hopelessly overrated, girl, part of me is fascinated with her music, cause somehow her songs always get me. San Francisco is wonderfully crafted song. That's for sure.)

What's Wrong With This Blog?

Something strange is happening to my blog. There seems to be a lot of carriage returns before the actual post appears on the site. Don't know how that happened. I can't figure out what I've done wrong.

Anika was here and we had breakfast. I had yoghurt and some wellness-soft-drink, she had a wholewheat-roll and coffee. Now I'm all alone again. Nobody showed up so far and I spend my time surfing the net and listening to Sarah McLachlan. I guess I will work on a draft for my CV later. I should really start applying for jobs.

Current mood: A little bit tired.
Listening to: Dirfting by S McL

Very Early

It's 7:36 am and I'm already at work. This morning at 6 am Pi complained that my alarm clock goes off every ten minutes and he couldn't sleep, so I decided to get up. So far I'm alone in this part of he office. The office here is divided into three parts, one is for the trainees (at least those who aren't at school or have courses or work for some other team), one is for the team that is responsible for our training and several other things concerning education and knowledge in this company and the other one is a security team or something like that. I don't really know and all trainees decided that we don't like them, so that's what I do.
Andreas isn't here yet. I was kind of expecting that, since I know he's meeting Melli for sushi tonight and so he's coming a little bit later today.

I still feel good about running yesterday. I can get easily excited about things, but I also know that after a while I tend to let them slide. Anyway I looked up the possibilities of taking part in runs next spring or summer in this region. Fortunately there are a lot of runs in Cologne, so I can at least have a goal like 'I want to take part in that-and-that run' and get my motivation from there. I doubt that it'll work, I know me too well for that, but it's worth a shot so I'll try. Pi noticed I had been running when he came back, for my sport shoes were in the hall. He wants to run, too, so I tried to find out where we could go. There seem to be a lot of opportunities for longer runs close to where we live. That's the nice thing about a living in a small town, there's always a little nature close by. I told him I wouldn't mind doing it alone from time to time. I like to just keep my own pace and don't feel the need to talk. If I keep it up I might think about an mp3-player, though.
Anyway, as I said I looked up the runs taking place here on the internet and there were pictures of a 10km-run last year, so I checked out the result list and found my aunt. I was very proud, she made place 11 (women) and place 3 (women her age). I even found pictures of the race, so here's my aunt, seeming very happy after the race.



She's the one with the blue shirt. Or, you could say, the small one. By the way, she ran the 10km in 43 minutes. Now, I have no idea, what that means, but I believe that it's a good result.

I realized I can't post comments from work. Obviously comments are regarded as 'Chat' by the Smartfilter installed here and so it won't let me through. So, I either have to wait until I'm home or I have to put everything in a post.


PS: A former trainee left this company yesterday. He was employed here after finishing his training for about 9 months and now he found a new job. Also, as far as I know, his contract here ran out at the end of this year, so he wouldn't have been around here any longer anyway. So, he was this keyplayer in one project, since he was basically the only one who knew how to do it, which is also most likely the only reason why he could work he for so long. Now, of course, the project isn't even close to be complete and they got this student to finish it. It will also be his work for his diploma. Poor guy. Bet he didn't know what he got himself into. The really stupid thing is that the guy who worked on the project before isn't around anymore to show him the details of the project, so it works like this.
Thilo (who left) told Martin (a trainee) what there is to know about the project and now Martin will tell the new guy what he remembers Thilo told him. I wanted to expand this procedure and have Thilo tell Martin, then Martin tell Stefan, Stefan tell me, I tell Andreas and so on until someone would tell the new guy. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Anika just emailed me asking if I wanted to have a breakfast break. So, hopefully, she will be here soon and I won't be alone for a while.

Current mood: A lot better. I'm still angry at the world and feel an urgent need to just hit our chancellor. Don't ask. I have my reasons.
Listening to: Dirty Little Secret by Sarah McLachlan (I just recently started to really listen to her new album and it's really quite good.)

Back and Better

I ran for about 30 minutes. It was pretty nice and I could enjoy the fresh air and the dark and almost empty streets. Pi isn't home yet. I stopped by the indoor pool to see if I would be there when he was just leaving coincidentally, but it didn't happen, so I continued to run.
Here's my round as far as I remember it:


Jamie's first run

I guess that I run about four kilometers or so, but that's really just a guess.

Current mood: Better than before. Maybe I will really keep up running. I hope I will.
Listening to: Nothing again.

Depressed Woman Running

I get home and I am a mess. Right now it's all too much (don't ask for details, just know that our life isn't full of joy at the moment) and I don't know how much more I can take and not break down. I would love to just stay in bed and cry but I don't think that's a smart thing to do. Pi isn't around, he went swimming, so I decided to go outside and run. I probable won't last very long, I haven't run in a long time and even back then I wasn't in great shape. But I have to get out of here now. Being alone inside will just make me more depressed than I already am. So I'm off.

Current mood: I said it. I will be better soon, but right now, I am not fine.
Listening to: Nothing.

Emotionally Wrecked

I learned today that you should not read the last 80 pages of 'The Time Traveler's Wife' on the train. I spent about one hour trying to hold back my tears as best as I could, still I couldn't prevent my eyes getting watery. I didn't cry though. At least not while I was on the train.
I spent the whole evening yesterday reading and starting on page 300 and something I finally gave in and started to cry. This is especially unusual since I hardly ever cry over books. I cry easily over a TV show or a movie, very easily, but it takes a lot to make me cry over a book. Well, this one did it. And I'm still an emotional wreck. I finished the book this morning and I find myself thinking about it and then I want to be home and be in a bed and cry into my pillow. Sniff.
Although this first paragraph contains mild spoilers I hope I didn't actually ruin the joy of reading this book for anyone. Because you should. Definitely. And you too.

I read that Hollywood already got the film rights, which is okay for me. I don't mind movies based on books as I know other people do. But then I read (and I hope it's just a rumour) that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston want to be Henry and Clare. Oh no, please, noooo! I don't even not like Mr. Pitt and Mrs. Aniston, but they are so not Henry and Clare. I couldn't even tell you who I think that (in case there is a movie) should play their roles, but I can tell you who shouldn't and those two are on that list.

Now I have to find something new to read, since I got so hooked on this book that it didn't take me more than four days to finish it. I still have Vanity Fair, but that doesn't compare and I find it very exhausting. I usually have no problems reading books in English, but Vanity Fair uses that strange old language and I think I don't even get half of the allusions and idioms and I get all mixed up with the names, so I can't usually read more that 10 pages in a row. And this book is really long.

Current mood: Oh, please, don't ask. This world just is unfair.
Listening to: Nothing.

Not Again!

I shouldn't post from work. This is the second time a long post got erased accidentally. I wanted to tell you about my frustrating search for jobs on the internet, our evening at Helene's place and a lot more and now I lost all motivation.
Also, I'm still searching for jobs in another browser and get distracted from writing all the time. So I'm not going into all that now. Have to find my motivation first. Here kitty, kitty. Here kitty, kitty.

Anyway, I am back at work and listening to Moneybrother's Stormy Weather on repeat (that's a song, not the name of a complete album). It's nearly dark out there and I need to stay until at least 5 pm. I don't like this day. Is it Friday yet?

So, the short version of the weekend comes right here:

Friday: Went to Helene's place to have dinner with Andreas S. (not the one I work with, unfortunately I know six Andreases, but you are only likely to meet three or four on this blog) and Helene and had a really good time. In retrospect I think that Pi and I talked a lot this evening, nearly too much. Hopefully they didn't mind and still want to see us. I got to know Helene a little better and she is a really nice, sweet person.

---
I just realize that I'm all alone in this part of the office now. Everybody else has left and went home. If I wasn't so keen on leaving also, I would be really happy right now. I like being alone in the office.
---

Friday (Part 2): Andreas made Moussaka for dinner and we had ice sandwiches for dessert. At 2 am (Yes, that's right!) he drove us home, since there weren't any busses going back that late.

Saturday: Stayed home, except for the grocery shopping. I made asian noodles with chicken, omelette, carrots, onions and spring onions, ginger, little corn cobs and sweet pepper and we watched TV and did stuff. I really don't remember exactly. Also, my parents came by to get a CD and took us into town with my mother's brand new car. She got a Renault Kangoo again, but I like the colour better and it has a lot of cool things the old one didn't have. I started to read 'The Time-Traveler's Wife' and I am more than happy with that book. I'll tell you more soon.

Sunday: Wanted to stay home but couldn't. Well, we were only out for about two hours, but my original plan was to not leave at all and that got spoiled. Lambert called because he had some computer problem. One of his daughters had tried to install Sims 2 on their computer and didn't quite succeed. I guess what I learned was that you should never ever upgrade DirectX9 from DirectX3. When was DirectX3 standard anyway? Was I born yet? So their graphics card collapsed and Pi had to try to make it work again and of course succeeded. The good thing was that they had bought cake and we had a little afternoon cake and coffee time, which was actually nice. Nevertheless we had to stop watching Alias for it. But we actually finished the first season on Sunday and I could finally unpack season 2 which had NO spoiler on the box. Thank you, Andreas. Nicely done, keeping me from opening a package for more than a week. I also finished another level of Spellforce and now I have to fight against the undead Korshar and his undead commanders, I took a long bath and I continued reading TTTW.

That was my weekend (Friday inclusive). The weather right now keeps me tired all the time. It's always grey and cold. It makes me want to spend my days under a warm, cozy blanket.

Current mood: Wintery (the good wintery feeling, when I still like the cold and the dark, the bad wintery feeling will start in about one month when I'm sick of winter and start to long for spring).
Listening to: Stormy Weather by Moneybrother.

Quick Question

Can someone please tell that guy on the other side of the partition that just because his phone has a hands-free option it doesn't mean that he has to use it for every damn call he makes?!? I really don't need to listen to all his phone-conversations. I don't.
It's just plain nerve-racking, that's what it is. And stupid. And, you know, a little bit childish. It's just showing off and it makes me think that this guy has nothing important to do after all.

Current mood: Still want to go home.
Listening to: Safe and Sound by Sheryl Crow (I'm having my Winamp-playlist shuffled now)

Thank God It's Friday

Today I couldn't get up as early as yesterday. I kept hitting the snooze button until it was 7:30 am, then finally decided I needed to get up somewhen and it might as well be now. It's not even like I was especially tired and needed the sleep. It was nearly the opposite. Every time the alarm went off I was awake. It was more that the bed was so warm and cozy, so I kept snuggling under the blanket with Pi and enjoying the warmth.
I am so happy that it's close to weekend now. After all the stress I want to really be able to relax. It's not that I really had to work that much for my tests, but I am always amazed how stress gets you even though you don't feel that stressed. It was even worse when I had to work on my project for the finals. I didn't even have to hurry, I was under no great pressure at all, still once I was done I was so tired for three whole days I couldn't believe it. Bottom line is, I need the weekend.

Pi is going to Krefeld today for an interview at some company. I don't really know what they want from him and I think he doesn't know a lot of details either. Hopefully it will turn out to be good. Then tonight we are invited for dinner. I still don't know if I should leave here early and go home and try to relax a little bit or if I should just stay at work longer and go straight to Helene's place from work. I haven't made up my mind yet. On the one hand I would love to get some rest, on the other hand it would be a good thing to do overhours again. For now I'm still here.

I have no idea what I could do here. I'm also not motivated enough to look for something to do or ask someone to give me something to do. I'm a really lazy trainee right now. Not happy about it. I hope my attitude will change for the better starting next week. I can't possibly be at work for two more weeks without anything to do. I am planning to do the presentation (which is another necessary part of me finisching my training) on my project, but apart from that... well, we'll see.

I had a day off on Wednesday. Since the weather was nice enough for the season (meaning: no rain), Pi and I decided to take a walk. We didn't have any specific idea where to go, so we just took off and walked by the indoor pool (because Pi wanted to check the prices) and then up Kölner Straße. We then kept walking and decided to try to go all the way to Wiesdorf. I didn't even know how far that would be, but I figured considering the nice fresh air that we would have no problems making it. It was a really nice long walk and I am happy we did it. It sometimes takes some convincing of Pi to drag me outside but I usually give in because I know he's right. I can be very lazy, especially when I have a day off. Of course we made it to Wiesdorf. I checked it later on the internet and now I know that we must have walked about 5 kilometers. Not exactly an impressive distance, but still a long walk.
We then walked around the pedestrian precinct, going into shops every now and then and mostly had a nice time, then took the bus back, got a little something to eat in Opladen and went home. An afternoon nicely spent.

By the way I asked Pi if we should start to try running again. We tried to back in Bonn, but my motivation ran out pretty soon. Now I think I may want to try again. Only I would first need to get some running clothes. Shoes I have somewhere, appropriate clothes not so much. I always want to try to do something good for my body and health but I never actually do it. I've never been into sports and I might never be. But I'm willing to give it a shot.
There's this girl here at work who I worked with from time to time. Her name is Kerstin and she's about a year older than me (I guess). She always talks about how she spends her time running or swimming after work and I admire her for that. Then she told me that back in school she wasn't into sports at all. She just started after her graduation when she already was a trainee here and now she's doing 20-kilometer-runs and everything. Anyway, hearing this made me think that maybe there is still hope for me, if I can just get over my laziness and just start it.

I just talked to Pi. He called me on my cell and I called him back from the phone at work (naturally). He's already on his way to Krefeld, apparently his interview got scheduled some time earlier. This most probably means that we are both indeed going home before we go to Helene's. I might even stay here longer and try to catch the train Pi is on on his way back, so we can get back home together.

These last days I'm back at the piano some more. I have some ideas for songs in my head and constantly repeat them and change them and try to get the right lyrics together. Songwriting for me is mostly a trial and error thing. I just start something and with time it either gets together or it does not. This might be the right time to draw your attention to the soundfile I added to my profile for this blog. That's really actually me singing and that was really actually me and Pi composing. I have some other mp3-files on my other website. You can go to http://www.jamieaffolk.com and listen to them.

I got another mail today with an invitation to a birthday party next weekend. Unfortunately it's on the same day my father wants to celebrate his birthday. I'm kind of torn, but not really. I guess we'll go to that other party, especially since we hardly see Joerg (who invited us) and I see my father a lot. Apart from that, I think it's really nice that he invited us. We are not really that close and have only met at other people's parties so far, so I was really surprised that he thought of us and asked us to come. We can still go and see my father a day later or so. I hope he isn't too disappointed when I tell him. He was really disappointed when I didn't invite my parents to my birthday party two months ago and I had a hard time convincing myself that it was perfectly normal and okay not to invite your parents to your 24th birthday.

I think that's enough for now. I will now try to amuse myself with something else. Or, if I'm very lucky, I will find something useful to do.

PS: For lunch I had canelloni filled with ricotta cheese and I guess what was spinach and again a little salad. At the moment I'm going all vegetarian at work.


Current mood: Can't wait to get home.
Listening to: Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus (I can't help it. I really like that song.)

Things To Do When You're Bored, Things To Listen To Because They're Great

As you might have heard I was bored at work today. Amazingly there's a site called http://www.bored.com offering a lot of links that promise at least a little distraction and sometimes fun.
I also tried www.lifesucks.com, www.borednow.com and several other names to see if somebody was smart enough to get those domains, but I wasn't lucky. Maybe I should get those domains. Then again I already own three domains and hardly ever update them.
So you don't need to try those two links, cause they don't exist. The first one does. If you find any links with similar names, please tell me. I wasn't really creative today and didn't try but a few names before I got frustrated.
Another site I found was http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/. It's like a interactive fridge-door with magnetic letters to shuffle around. You can try to actually make some words but the most likely case will be that you never get to finish just a four-letter-word, since up to 75 other people try the same. At least at first I thought that you should try to get together some words. Then I realized that maybe the real goal or more likely the real fun of the 'game' was to just destroy somebody's word just when he tried to finish it. That's mean, I'm aware, but also a lot more fun. Also, you could try to sort letters by color and or just make large heaps of letters. It's very confusing and really destructive and when you're caffeinated and/or drunk and/or bored like hell it's hilarious. Apart from that, it's really very stupid. (Yeah, like I care.)
Then I found http://www.getannoyed.com, which is basically a site with tips how to annoy other people. Not that I need any tips for that, but on the other side, you never know.
So much about that.

The second part of the title refers mostly to my new discovery. Go, go and buy Moneybrother's 'Blood Money'. It's so great. I first heard of him on Sarah Kuttner's show and then tried it out. This album is just amazing. I find it hard to describe music, so I try to do this as easy and quickly as possible.
The really short version: Go get it. If you don't like it, please don't sue me.
The slightly longer version: It reminds me a little bit of the New Radicals and I love that album as well. Only Moneybrother is more fun and cares a little less about actually being able to sing. He still manages to pull it off.

Other things to add:
1. I realize I made some mistakes (mostly typos, only there was this one sentence that really made no sense). I promise to edit my posts really soon and make them as errorless as possible.
2. Something else. I forgot.
3. I am back to playing Spellforce. Yesterday night I fought battles again undead armies with my 70-man army of elves and dwarves. Now I have to fight even more undead armies. But I am very confident that I will win.
4. I plan to install Sims 2 on Pi's computer really soon and then build families inspired on some TV show.
The options are...
a) Smallville characters (which would most likely be a lot of fun)
b) the contestants of one of the seasons of The Apprentice (note: I don't need to control them all at one time and they don't necessarily need to live all together in one house)
c) the cast of Joan of Arcadia
d) the cast of Charmed
e) the cast of Lost
My favorite one is b. Only I would have to decide which season I prefer. And it would be a lot work to design all the characters and build them houses. But I'm really open to suggestions and new ideas.

Tomorrow evening we are invited for dinner at some friends, or actually a friend and his new girlfriend who I only met once at my birthday party. She seemed really nice, but I have to admit I didn't really got to talk to her a lot that evening. I guess I'll know more about her soon.

Current mood: A little bit tired, obviously talkative and really fine.
Listening to: Stormy Weather by Moneybrother (told you).

Why Murphy Was Right (Part I)

Wow! That sucks. I just wrote a real long post telling you all about Tuesday morning and accidentally erased everything. Is there no recovery function here? The irony is that I just tried to copy everything, so that I could at least restore it if anything bad happened while I was writing. It just backfired in a really screwed-up way.
You know what?
I'm officially offended. That's not fair. It just isn't. It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't already written so much.

Are you there, life? Well, thanks for just gently kicking me in the stomach when I most needed it.

Anyway, next try. The funny thing is that the title of this post fits even better now. Not that it makes it any better. I'm just saying.

At the moment, I'm at work. Right until Tuesday evening I thought I wouldn't be back here until next Monday, but apparently I couldn't have been wronger (I don't care whether this word exists or not). So I am back here and I'm already bored. There's nothing to do and the little I could do I don't want to do right now. But I'm already doing overtime. This blog will probably blossom in a way you haven't seen before. I have so much time at hand when I'm at work, it's unbelievable. I can't believe I actually get money for this. On the other hand, I really don't get a lot of money, so no wonder my motivation sunk to a new low-point again. (Remember I started this blog because I was bored at work.)

I originally planned to tell you all about Tuesday morning and how I became a firm believer in Murphy's Law, but I'm not doing that now. I did it. It was a desaster. It was erased.
So, I will tell you about that tomorrow or whenever I am willing to go back there, but not now.

Now I will write about all the lovely little things that helped making my day not a complete disappointment. I'm actually talking about work here. To be honest, I'm not really talking about work but about this company and more this building. Work hasn't gotten any better.
I got up today at 5 am. No typo. I actually managed to get up and not hit the snooze button twenty times before I was willing to drag myself out of the bed. I am very proud of myself. This also means that when I leave here at 4 pm (as I plan to do) I will have done approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes overtime. I have to work overtime these next two weeks, so I can take an additional day off and make my holiday complete (starting at December 13th and I'm not coming back until January).
I took the train at 5:43 am and arrived at work at 6:37 am. I know the exact time, because I can see it when I 'check in' with my company card. Andreas arrived about one minute later, by the way, but he already left which is why I can write here in peace without him hanging around my desk all the time. He doesn't know that I have a blog and I'm not sure if I want him to know, especially since he appears frequently on this blog. Whatever.

What I did today:
1. Filled out the form for taking my holiday in December. I have 12 days of holiday left to take so with the extra day I want to take off I get the whole last three weeks of December. Yay! I can't wait.

2. Got my new company ID card, which looks pretty much like the old one (the picture is nearly 2 1/2 years old, I don't even look like that girl on the card anymore - well, I actually do, only with shorter hair) but is way cooler due to some technical improvements, which I'm not going to try to explain to you, because I didn't understand them at all. Just know that it is cooler.

3. Was bored. A lot.

4. Went to see and distract the MaTA-trainees who are working on their programming project for their finals this week. I'm neither telling you what MaTA stands for, nor am I going to try to translate it or describe it. When they are done with their training they will be a little bit like us only they actually learned something during their training and their training is a lot more expensive than ours. And the company loves them for no particular reason. They just love them. Which is why they get all the good courses and we have to beg to get some crappy ones. Anyway, two of the four MaTAs are really nice and the other two are not. To give you names, Anika and Philipp are the nice ones and Stefan and Anett are those that we don't like that much. Only we call them Stefanett, because they are more like one person with two bodies. I have never before seen two people who constantly agree with each other on everything like those two do.

5. Had lunch, wholewheat pasta with vegetable sauce and a little salad. I ate really healthy today. Proud again. Patting my back.

6. Ranted about the exams. I actually did that before lunch, so now you know that this isn't really a chronological account of what happened today.

7. Marveled about the lovely new things here.

8. Was bored some more.

That basically covers it.

So, I would like to write about those lovely new things now, but I don't think I have a lot of time left. I will just get to the very best right now.

We have an all new 'coffee bar' here in the company. Yay! I'm not even a big coffee-drinker, but this is just great and bound to suck all the money from my pocket. Today I had a latte machiatto with vanilla syrup and a café au lait with caramel syrup. I'm so happy. I will most probably have at least two coffees a day now. Which isn't really that healthy but I also don't really care.

Got to go now. I just got a text message from Natascha. She gave me some scented candles for my birthday which were just great and I need more now. But apparently she got them from a store with changing offers, so I don't know if I can get some more. Damnit.

Anyways, I need to pack my things now and leave or I won't catch my train.

Current mood: Caffeinated.
Listening to: I'll Find A Way by Rachael Yamagata.

And Murphy Was Right!

I know that now!
What happened today that convinced me of the absolute correctness of Murphy's Law, I will write about that later when I am even more relaxed than I am right now.
Everything is over, the tests went fine as far as I can tell. I don't think that I did excellent, but I guess that overall I did good and for now that's fine with me. Ask me again when I get the results and see if I am ranting then.
By the way, I will not get the results until... well, a really long time from now. They weren't even bothering to tell us when we could expect the results, they were just like 'Don't call us to ask. Just... don't.'

So I just called our new favorite pizza delivery service. According to Pi they have the very best pizza and according to me they make very good salads and the best pasta in Leverkusen (the pasta still doesn't top my favorite two pasta dishes made by two different delivery services back in Bonn, but it is really good).

Today we're having:
Pizza Bolognese (although they write it Bollognese, but that's either a typo or simple ignorance) for Pi
Salad Nizza for me (Oil-Vinegar-Dressing)
Tiramisu for both of us

If you want the same, just call the number below!


Best Pizza in the World (Order Here)


PS: Jamie, thanks for the cheering me up. From what I can tell so far, it helped!

Current mood: Happy. HAPPY! And a little bit hysterical. That goes with the demise of the stress. Naturally. And Happy.
Listening to: Nothing right now.

Studying. Finally. ...and Freaking Out.

I have only very little time, because I just recently realized how much I don't know and probably should, so I'm really busy today. I learned all new things about networks, routers, switches, gateways, TCP/IP and stuff and I can honestly say that I have absoultely no idea what it all is about. I'm more trying to remember the disadvantages and advantages of all those things when compared to others, because it's likely that there will be questions like that.

I still have some work to do, but I decided to set a time limit and just stop at some point this evening and try not to think about it too much. Which won't work, but it sounds like a nice plan.

So, you can all wish me luck for tomorrow.
Or, if you're not willing to do that you can wish me one million dollars. I won't hesitate to take the money and fail the test, but since I don't think that's an option, just wish me luck. I can definitely need it.

Current mood: A strange mixture of all kinds of different feelings. Anxious, scared, excited, even kind of happy.
Listening to: Nothing. (Are you kidding me?)

The 15-Minute Blog

Yes, because we have to leave in 15 minutes, so this is all I got.My parents invited us for lunch today, first it was dinner, but then something came up, something with my mother and my aunt and a concert and obviosuly I didn't really listen to what my father was saying, anyway, dinner changed to lunch, so that's where we're going.
Yesterday I did nothing (I repeat: nothing) for my exams and I don't really feel bad about it. I feel more like it was a good thing to have a day where I completely relaxed. And I will still think so if I can get over myself and do something today and tomorrow. If I can do that, everything will be fine. So we watched a lot of episodes of 'The Apprentice' and here's the good thing: Since both Pi and I are no native-speakers (concerning English) we can claim watching 'The Apprentice' as some kind of educational learning-English thing and be completely oblivious to the fact that we watched about 3 hours of junk TV. Though, you...? Can't.

I also took a bath and I originally intended to read some more, but I ended up enjoying the hot water and really just relaxing a lot. The books were there but remained untouched.

So, 7 minutes to go.

I keep realizing that I am incredibly pale. When I was younger I always thought that I was a dark type which was mostly because I have brown hair and brown eyes and was even asked if I had Spanish or French or whatever ancestors (which I do not, so don't bother to ask) a few times. Now I know that if I ever come close to one type, I'm definitely winter. Mostly because I'm really pale. One time I was in an elevator with Andreas, who is as red-head as can be, with you know really red hair and freckles and everything and there was a mirror and I had to realize that I am paler than he is. Why do I tell you this? I have no idea. It must have been the first thing that came into my mind and I'm running out of time here.

So, with 3 minutes to go I'm just gonna stop here. I got new shoes by the way. My mother bought some second hand and they fit and I'm happy. So I'm gonna pull them on right now, and then up and leave.

Current mood and Listening to...? No time for that.

Studying. Not.

Another short post. I've been trying to study for the last 1 1/2 hours or so, but I couldn't really concentrate, mostly because my hatred for the IHK grew with every minute I spent doing one of the old final exams. The tasks and questions are so damn stupid. They are either too easy or they are just wishy-washy, so that you have no clue what it is they want you to do or they are too difficult, and that mostly in the sense that there are a lot of things that I have never heard of before neither at work nor at school. In my opinion that means that I will probably never need to know. Or, in the not so likely case that I will, I consider myself smart enough to type in that particular word into the google search box and get the information I need. I hate the IHK. Hate 'em. All.

By the way, can I somehow use footnotes using this system? Because that would be really, really cool. Just saying.

So for the moment I stopped studying and I think I will watch some TV now befpre returning to my books and papers later this evening. I was so tired when I came home, but we had to first fo to the post office and then to the small computer shop up on Kölner Straße (which most probably means nothing at all to you, but for the sake of detailed description, there it is) because as far as Pi can tell, what is broken in my father's computer is the controller. The main problem is that the computer doesn't recognize any of the hard disc drives anymore and they were connected with a RAID system. My computer actually did recognize them, but couldn't access any data, so we figured that the discs themselves most likely are not broken, which is good news so far, but that something must be wrong with the connection between the two HDDs. So, to make boring computer stuff that even I have no clue about short, Pi is trying to get a new controller and we hope and keep our fingers crossed that the controller really is the problem , because if it's not, we have to find something else to blame for the breakdown.

Where was I... Yes, I was tired and we had to do a lot of things before I could actually get home. Pi said something about me being quite exhausted and getting used to it lately and he's right. I tend to lie down and just fall asleep and then sleep really long those last days, but as I said, I was really tired. So I made myself comfy on the couch, watched about 45 minutes of 'Sarah Kuttner - Die Show' and then fell asleep. The first time I woke after just 20 minutes or so and I really should have gotten up then, but of course I didn't, because I was oh-so-comfy wrapped in the blanket, so I fell asleep again and this time I slept for one whole hour. So, you thought your life was boring? Ha! I bet you know better now.

What else is there to write? I finally got my monthly cooking magazine...

awkward silence

You... don't look at me that way.

more awkward silence

I said: Don't. Look. At. Me. That. Way.
Really.

Confession #1: I get a cooking magazine. Once a month.
Confession #2: I subscribed to it.
Confession #3: I'm really very proud of it.
Confession #4: I get all excited when I know a new one is coming. I'm starting to talk about it approximately 5 to 7 days before I get it.

Okay, now that I finally got that out, can I please continue. My new cooking magazine is great. I particularly fell in love with two of the cakes, a panna-cotta-thing with gingerbread-flavour and stewed oranges, filled orange-crêpes, some sauerkraut-toasts with apples, and some very nice ideas for a Christmas menu. And I finally have an idea what I could give my mother for Christmas. They have a recipe for cinnamon-liqueur in there and that's just what I think my mother would like.
Andreas fell in love with all the cakes. But it's not like that I didn't expect that.

If I get my scanner to work, which at the time is not the case, I might scan some pictures, so you can see all those great meals, desserts and whatever I am talking about. I'm so thrilled! I love my cooking magazine.

I think I really wrote enough now. This entry is longer than I expected it to be. So I'll save writing about the strange weather we had here today later.

Current mood: Since the weekend is near, very fine.
Listening to: Me typing, Pi playing the piano.